The wife and I had so much fun decorating our patio with a Tiki theme that we decided to do the whole house.

One room at a time.

Dining Room is first.

Started with white walls, 20 year old blue carpet, and the fish tank on a stand.

First we removed the carpet and had the Terrazzo floors ground and polished. During this step we also moved the fish tank and painted the walls. Here it is in it's original position:

Here is it moved in front of the sliding glass doors (we are installing French doors in living room so these are no longer needed).

Next it was time to "build in" the tank for a more custom look:

We also added new baseboards at this time.

Next it was time to do the ceiling. I purchased 12 8 x 4 Herringbone sea grass mats from Frank's supply. We used contact cement to attach them to 8 x 4 sheets of polytherm sheeting. This is about 1/4 inch thick and a lot cheaper than 1/4 plywood.

Used stained pine 1 x 2's for the borders.

Before:

During:

After:

Replaced the ceiling fan with a light from Expo. Still need to add a window treatment ad some art to the walls and paint the cross beam. But all the "major" task are completed.

On 2005-04-25 12:13, theartcoach wrote:How do you service you tank now?

There are sliding glass doors behind the tank that can be seen in the 2nd picture.
I just go out to the Florida room and open the glass doors. It is actually easier to service now than when it was on the stand.

Can you see the back of the tank and fish food, and other fishy paraphanelia from the Florida room, or did you obscure it somehow?

I have 2 bamboo shades covering the sliding glass doors, so you can not see the tank from the Florida room. I just lift the shades and slide open the doors to service the tank. I have 2 auto-ma-tic fish feeders so I only need to go back there about once a week.

Looks really Awesome!. The Salt tank is Really nice too. Every Tropical fish enthusists dream to Wall in their 300 gal reef tank. Ho large is your setup? Very nice (I used to have a few 75's and 55's and 90' and 20's..)
Can't wait to see it ALL done..
Thanks for sharing ALL these pic's.
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The whole set up is 420 gallons. 350 for the tank and there is a 70 gallon sump underneath. There are currently 4 96w Power Compacts for the lighting but I am thinking about moving to 2 x 400w metal halides.

We hung some masks above it last weekend. I will add some more pics once I clean the tank.